Hard Reset: PC exclusive, single-player only, new engine, OMG

Hard Reset is only coming to the PC, it doesn't have any multiplayer, and it's …

Here's what is best in life: a single-player first-person shooter that allows me to show off what my computer can do. I know I'm probably in the minority here, and I began to feel like the time of getting a game that fulfilled these needs has passed. And then I was sent information about Hard Reset, an upcoming PC-only game built with a brand-new engine. Even better? The focus is purely on single-player.

"Our engine was built with one thought—to be used in a first-person shooter that uses lots of physics and destruction, with outstanding graphics and also optimized to do the job well," Michal Szustak, CEO of developer Flying Wild Hog, told Gamespot. "There are many games published on PCs that are just ports from consoles, and we all know that today the power of a current-gen console is similar to a four- to five-year-old PC."

The game will also feature maps and gameplay that is more Doom than Call of Duty, with larger levels to explore and secrets to find. "In the era of movie-like shooters almost 'on rails,' with player-environment interaction as limited as possible, we wanted to create a game for old-school PC players, raised on all those forgotten Dooms, Quakes, and Painkillers," Szustak said.

Take a look at the game in action.

Hard Reset

With a small team working outside the big publisher system, there was only so much that could be put into Hard Reset, so the team poured their heart and soul into the single-player experience. This is a risky move these days, but they have at least one appreciative gamer on their side.

We'll be playing the game soon enough and will share our thoughts, and if you have any questions for the team send them my way so I can pass them up. Until then, it's good to see a team so obviously in love with classical game design making a game that should look great on modern systems.